A guy I know asked me the other day what movie I was reviewing this week. When I told him it was a Western he said: “I didn’t know they still made those.”

If you ask me, the thing Hollywood does really well—the thing it needs to do well—isn’t making movies. It’s making trailers. It’s the trailer, after all, that gets people to see a movie. A movie only has to be good enough to provide three or four minutes that can be edited into a segment that will intrigue people enough to plop down their $9 for a ticket. After that, it doesn’t much matter if the movie stinks: it’s not like theaters give refunds.